Alien Hotel.

Chapter 674 Fleet Assembly
The hermit followers in front of me were conducting an examination of the "angelic catalyst," each of them looking both alarmed and unable to hide their excitement.

Luo was still rambling on in the headphones about her stolen technology, interspersed with all sorts of incomprehensible theoretical explanations.

Eileen muttered in the mental connection that the storage box under the chair was quite comfortable to lie in, narrow and reassuring, and the little doll gave the impression of a cat.

Yu Sheng pretended to be nervous about the "Angel Catalyst" and walked quietly to a corner at the edge of the docking platform. The Hermit soldiers watched him, but most of their attention quickly returned to the "Angel Catalyst".

A clone pilot sent to deliver goods, without even a handgun for self-defense, and with almost zero psionic energy... how much trouble could such a person cause on such a massive interstellar warship?

Yu Sheng gently pricked his finger with the bloodletting knife hidden in his sleeve. A few drops of blood fell onto the platform floor and were instantly absorbed by the cold steel.

That's enough. Just leave a mark.

He also needed to ensure the ship returned safely to the Hermitage's controlled star system and that the "stone" was safely returned to their planet. Before that, he didn't want to cause too much of a commotion.

“All parameters match the characteristics of the ‘Zolda Black Stone’,” a Hermitage technician who was fiddling with a handheld device next to the force field box said, looking up. “Unstable, minute spatial distortions were found inside the containment container, which also matches the characteristics of the ‘Black Stone’.”

A white-robed priest standing nearby nodded slightly upon hearing this, then pressed the communicator next to his ear and quickly reported the situation in the hangar to a superior—likely the ship's commander.

Yu Sheng waited patiently for a while and saw the priest's expression relax and a slight smile appear on his face.

Seeing this, the other members of the Hermitage around them relaxed, and many of them also put on smiles.

Yu Sheng stood beside this group of people, smiling even more happily than they did.

Let's put it this way: if he weren't wearing a helmet, the priests present might have suspected that he was the true devout follower of the Holy Path, since his cheerful demeanor was so genuinely heartfelt. And if these Hermitage followers had shot Yu Sheng on the spot, his mouth would have stretched even further, and he might have even been laughing out loud as he died.

Unfortunately, Yu Sheng waited on the sidelines for a long time, but these people didn't seem to be planning to double-cross him. He couldn't find a reason to die on the spot, so he could only nod and greet the group of ecstatic cultists through his helmet, exchanging pleasantries and thanking each other for their hard work. In the end, they even came over to shake hands warmly...

“You can go back now,” the leading white-robed priest nodded, quite politely. “Go back and tell Old Joe that the Secret Order will keep its promise and the final payment will be transferred to the previous secret account today—and don’t contact us again for a while, unless it involves Zolda Blackstone or other Dark Angels.”

Yu Sheng nodded repeatedly, and then boarded the shuttle while being watched by a group of cult members.

The platform unlocked, the stagnant field dissipated, and the silver-gray black dot shuttle slowly rose, flying towards the hangar exit not far away.

As Yu Sheng handed over control to the autonomous driving system, he breathed a sigh of relief, then turned his head to look to the side and saw a pair of scarlet eyes staring at him expectantly through the gap in the passenger seat.

He stroked his chin: "...Do you think I should pretend to be a terrible driver and crash into their hangar passageway?"

“Are you even speaking human language?” the little puppet said. “I advise you not to do this. We’ve already managed to fool them, don’t try to upset those charlatans with another trick—it will delay the important business. They’re just obsessed, not stupid.”

"Just kidding, just kidding," Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand, but couldn't help glancing back at the spaceship that had been left behind the porthole. "But to be honest, isn't that ship really cool..."

Eileen: "Listen to yourself, do you look like a good person...?"

Yu Sheng was amused and casually pulled the little doll out from under the chair. Then he breathed a sigh of relief: "...Infiltrating an enemy ship alone, delivering a deadly decoy, and then swaggering away, I think I have an idea for my new folder (8) - you know what, it's quite exciting."

The little doll nimbly climbed onto his shoulder: "I didn't see any nervousness on your part. And do you want to hear what you have to say—let's finish writing the first one first?"

Yu Sheng simply smiled and remained silent. He leaned back in the cockpit of the shuttle in a relaxed posture, bathed in the distant starlight distorted by the gravitational fault. Outside the porthole, the massive "Dark Star" cruiser was slowly accelerating toward a point in deep space near the gravitational collapse point. With a warped barrier that opened instantly, the silhouette of the interstellar warship suddenly lengthened before disappearing in the flash of warp.

After waiting for a while, Yu Sheng left the dangerous gravitational fault zone with the remote navigation guidance provided by Luo. Only after crossing the "space mountains" formed by the broken planet and confirming that there were no surveillance cameras nearby did he directly teleport the shuttle back to the high orbit of Shuji.

In the rest area of ​​the ecological ring of the Black Rock Space Station, Momo perked up its ears and watched as a phantom door appeared in the air.

Yu Sheng carried Eileen out of the front door. Hu Li, who had been dozing on the sofa, instantly jumped up, lunged forward, and with the ferocity of an assassin, rammed his head into Yu Sheng, his tail swaying like a five-speed electric fan: "My benefactor, you're back! Everything went smoothly, right? Weren't you discovered? Did you deliver the goods?"

"Successfully, successfully, it's been sent out... Hey, stop shaking me, it's making me dizzy," Yu Sheng said as he hurriedly removed the giant fox from his body, then turned his head and saw the golden-haired elf standing to the side. "When do you think those charlatans will send that 'angel catalyst' to their home planet?"

Luo Yi shrugged: "How would I know? Anyway, if it were me, I would definitely check the whole container first to make sure there are no tracking devices or spy equipment left on it. Then I would find a safe place to isolate the Angel Catalyst and observe it for ten days or half a month to make sure that this thing won't suddenly explode—I have a serious psychological trauma about this thing."

Yu Sheng stroked his chin: "Let's not even talk about whether those crazy people will be that cautious. That 'Gate of Eden' might not be so well-behaved."

“That’s why I said that’s my situation. If it were those charlatans… I’d even suspect that ship is already flying straight towards their home planet,” Luo said, picking up the data terminal and rapidly operating it. “They should have an illegal stargate on the border that allows that ‘Dark Star’ cruiser to jump over the vast open area between their home planet and the Morona Fault. I tracked the ship’s last acceleration signal before it entered the jump phase, and I can roughly determine its jump direction from the direction it points. Combined with the coordinates I cracked by tracking the communication array a while ago… we should be able to pinpoint the location of that stargate soon.”

Eileen blinked, then suddenly turned to look at Yu Sheng: "Hey, didn't you leave a mark on their spaceship? And there's your blood in that 'Angel Catalyst' too. Why didn't you just go after them and open the door? Why go through all this trouble?"

“Those markings are meant to be activated at the last minute,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “The Secret Order will definitely have people keeping a close watch on the Angel Catalyst, and the spaceship used to transport the Catalyst will certainly be a key target of surveillance. If we open the door now, we’ll be exposed. We should at least wait until the Catalyst is sent to the Holy Land—it’s definitely going to be sent there.”

He paused, a slight smile appearing on his face: "Either we don't open the door, or we open it and infiltrate their homeworld directly—we're an elite team."

“Yes, yes…” Eileen scratched her head, seemingly understanding, but quickly turned to Luo, “Then the location stargate is for…”

Luo raised his eyelids: "Light up the coordinates for the fleet."

Eileen: "Fleet? What fleet?"

……

In the distant depths of space, within a planetary system adjacent to the ancient Terra star system, a vibrant and thriving planet is bathed in the endless radiance of its star.

Mela-IX – One of the colonies under the control of the Borderlands.

On this highly developed planet, massive industrial complexes are clearly visible from space, and transportation networks spanning continents trace faintly glowing lines of latitude and longitude in the atmosphere. The forests and mountains within the protected areas are lush and green, shimmering with azure light under the starlight. Beyond that thick atmosphere, there are countless space facilities built layer upon layer around the planet.

Dense array of armed satellites, massive zero-gravity factories, orbital mobile cannons to protect space elevators and space cities, starports, warp bridges, shipyards in high orbits, and an astonishingly large homeworld defense fortress that oversees all these facilities.

The homeworld's defense fortress, shaped like a giant obelisk, hangs high above Mera-IX. A massive fleet has already assembled and is anchored in the matrix field near the fortress, awaiting orders.

A thin, pale-faced girl wearing a thin white dress, with long black hair reaching her ankles, was standing on the observation deck at the top of the home planet's defense fortress.

The girl's eyes were closed, yet she seemed to be "watching" the fleet waiting in space.

Baili Qing stood beside the girl.

“This fleet should be enough to suppress the Secret Order’s main force on the border—unless they somehow managed to block the entire fleet near the stargate,” the black-haired girl said, turning her head slightly. “But are you really sure you want to come along? Going on a fleet expedition isn’t the job of the Secret Service director.”

Bai Liqing raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly: "I need a vacation too."

"Trying going on a naval expedition as a vacation?"

"I don't need to make calls—and if I don't go out for a walk soon, I'll be stuck in the office forever."

The black-haired girl with her eyes tightly closed seemed to reveal a slight smile. She tilted her head slightly and said, "Alright, whatever makes you happy, just don't jump off the deck and plunging into the atmosphere like you did back then..."

(End of this chapter)